Just let it go.

This blog is about as close to a journal as I can ever get. I know other people that journal religiously, and you know what? Good for them! I have always been too self-conscious or pretentious and unfocussed or undisciplined to write my deepest and darkest or whatever every night. When I blog, I most often have a little tale to tell, a tale that I try to tell succinctly and, occasionally, in a funny or light-hearted manner.

There are times that I have blogged more stream-of-consciously, and I guess this is one of those posts. (Although I have edited it before posting. I ain't stupid.)

This past week has given me some little bit o' insight into my inner workings. Maybe not answers, but reasons. Cause and effect. Does any one person ever figure this crap that we call life out? One thing happens, which causes an effect, which then triggers another action, and so on, until this complex Rube Goldberg thing is going on in one's life and one wonders how in the world it all happened. I have been trying to figure it out these past few days, and hence, the few minor insights.

The flapdoodle began with a comment I made about a photo on my niece's facebook, a photo showing five cute girls in daisy dukes and T shirts that read "Check It," as they posed with their back ends toward the camera. I thought it was a funny sort of comment, and my niece and my brother were cool with it. However, one of the friend's mother read my comment and it made her unhappy and so she proceeded to phone my brother and raise Cain. Sigh. My brother then asked me to just be more careful about what I wrote on niece's fb page.

The whole thing should not have gone downhill from that point, but it did.

Alcohol was involved, let me say that up front.

There was a little flurry of messages sent back and forth, as I was essentially trying to tell my niece that maybe she shouldn't post such, shall we say, provocative photos for all the world to see. (That is how I remember it, anyway.) All was fine, until a little friend of hers decided to check out my fb profile and learned that under religion, I had posted atheist. That little friend said a few things, and I answered back in what I thought was an adult manner. Then she told me I was going to hell because I am an atheist. I wanted to reach through the ether and slap her up side her childish little head. That was my gut emotion. Not that I believe in hell. That was not what made me angry. I don't believe that there is a burning cauldron of brimstone for my life hereafter. It was her insolence that got to me.

(I seldom get angry. I don't do angry well. I hope that my Faithful Ten Readers realize that I am a person that tries to do good things, (or at least I try not to cause harm,) and that I am a person who tries to act rightly, correctly, and truthfully always, a person that tries to be tolerant and accepting of all other people. Even though I fail every day, I still try every day to live according to these principles.)

That girl pushed my button when she said, with such a sense of holiness and self-righteousness, that I was going to hell. I replied to her that my religious beliefs, or lack thereof, had no bearing on the discussion I was trying to have with my niece, which was, watch what you place on facebook. What a person posts is out there for the entire world to see. My niece has almost 700 friends. (And they have two friends, and they have two friends….) What she posts is out there for future employers, spouses, deans, college administrators, neighbors, in-laws, for everybody and their brother to see. Your so called "friend" can forward your photos and information to all sorts of places and people. Does she really know almost 700 friends, personally?
All of whom have access to one's photo albums and personal info? There are consequences in posting suggestive photos, lotsof them at that, even if one's intent is innocent.

A few more messages were sent.

Then my niece called her dad, my brother, to essentially tattle about her friend and her aunt battling it out on facebook comments. (Anyone remember when tattling was considered wrong?) (Am I that fucking old?) Brother then calls me to say, wtf? I asked you to cool it! He defriends me, and he makes my niece defriend me. He told me that he was the dad and he would handle it, and why didn't I back off like he asked. He said that I was the adult in the situation, and I should have done better, known better. Phone calls, tears, sorrow, my tears, and in the end, after the tears, fences were mended with my brother and them, for the most part, but still? I seem unable to get this whole thing out of my head. The entire episode has been swirling around in my brain since Wednesday, like some perverse, Tim Burton inspired, merry-go-round.

Hence, the insights. I'm not perfect. That's a given, and I freely admit it. I like to be right. (Who doesn't?) I like to be acknowledged as being right when I am in the right. I hate being called on the carpet when I think I have done nothing wrong. I really, really hate to be fussed at, and that is why I can't work with the public except in a boss position. I. Hate. Being. Fussed. At. (This attitude goes back to a time before I can remember, I must have been around two years old, when my dad spanked me, and I was sick for days afterwards. My mother forbade him to ever spank me again. (Yet he backhanded me once, and there was always that threat of severe punishment if I misbehaved.)
I was wrong. (Although I am still trying to convince myself that I was. I keep saying it, and it still sticks in my craw.) I should not have engaged. True. Again, alcohol was involved. The fact that my little brother acted badly and unfairly towards me? Devastated me to my core. Yet when I consider his actions, I know that he was merely being a parent. A loving and wonderful and protective parent.

But on the other hand, I feel right to have spoken up.

Oh, and remember that I am going off of my anti-repressant and anti-anxiety pills? Add that to the mix. Not an excuse.

So in the end? I am doing my utmost to keep myself in check and my mouth shut. Family is important. If writing about this on my blog helps me to sort my shit out, it's all good.

If any of you can give some insight, some guidance? Please do so. I need help, that is for sure.